RALEIGH — Construction
gets under way Monday, Dec. 17 on a $650,800 N.C. Department of Transportation
project to replace the Patterson Road bridge over Drowning Creek at the
Moore-Richmond County line, southwest of Pinehurst.

Eastern Structures LLC of Denton, N.C.
was awarded the contract to replace the 57-year-old bridge, which is considered
functionally obsolete. It remains safe, but was not built to current design
standards and is unable to properly handle the volume of traffic it now
carries.

Motorists will be using a signed detour
to get around the project until it is completed in mid-May 2013. In Richmond
County, drivers will go north on Sycamore Lane past the turn for Patterson
Road, then turn:

Right
onto Derby Road;

Right
onto Currie Road;

Left
onto Cedar Lane Road;

Right
onto Richmond Road; and

Right
onto Hoffman Road back to Patterson Road/Rose Ridge Road.

For drivers coming from Moore County,
where Patterson Road changes to Rose Ridge Road, the detour is the same in
reverse, starting north of the Hoffman Road-Patterson/Rose Ridge intersection.

For more information on this project,
contact NCDOT Resident Engineer Chuck Dumas at (910) 944-7554.